<p class="quote"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 24px;"><span class="quote">THE MERRY MONTH&#160;of July 2009 had barely witnessed the spectacle of Al Franken eventually taking his seat&#160;&#160;as the junior senator from Minnesota when, immediately following the death of Walter Cronkite,&#160;<span style="font-style: italic;">Time<span style="font-style: normal;">&#160;magazine took an online poll&#160;to determine who was now &#8220;America&#8217;s most trusted newscaster.&#8221; Seven percent of those responding named Katie Couric. Nineteen percent nominated Charles Gibson. Twenty-nine percent went for Brian Williams. But the clear winner, garnering 44 percent, was Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. Either I missed it, or the poll failed to specify, in that wonderfully reassuring way that polls purport to do, what had been its &#8220;margin of error.&#8221;</span></span></span></span></p> Christopher Hitchens | The Atlantic christopher hitchens, the atlantic, daily show, jon stewart, stephen colbert the-feed 6 2009-11-06T09:38:21-05:00 <p>Apparently it's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Daily Show</span>&#160;and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Colbert Report</span>&#160;that are cheapening our national political dialogue. Uh... huh.</p> 5 6375 christopher-hitchens-not-at-all-a-fan-of-jon-stewart-and-stephen-colbert 2009-11-06T09:42:42-05:00 true false false false false 2009-11-06T10:38:07-05:00 http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/satire# 84 0